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Steve Pink's directorial debut (he was the screenwriter on John Cusack's great black comedy Grosse Point Blank) is a slight but punchy comedy of college-aged misfits that starts out strong before slipping down a greasy narrative slope into a lackluster third act that denies most of the earlier laughs. (CS) Rated PG-13

& r & BARNYARD & r &

Steve Odenkirk, of Kung Pow: Enter the Fist fame, helms the story of Otis, a cow who plays with the idea of revealing animals' biggest secret (that they're just like people). While the movie is being pitched as a wacky anthro animal romp, Odenkirk insists that there are serious themes afoot. Rated PG

& r & Beerfest & r &

Perfectly timed for both the onset of the fall semester and the approach of Oktoberfest, Beerfest is a one-note ode to all those things every college guy is supposed to love: beer, girls, pot, beer, bad German accents, filthy language and beer. There's a thin plot in there somewhere (old boozing buddies reunite to compete in a drinking competition in Deutschland), but it's little more than the framework for a string of sometimes lame, sometimes hilarious gags. (Watch for the scene involving a naked Jay Chandrasekhar and a dead deer). It's not the Broken Lizard troupe's best work (Super Troopers was), but it's a must for their fans. And anyone with a couple Pabsts in them. (JPS) Rated R

& r & THE COVENANT & r &

In this man-witches-meet-drug-references high-school-dude flick, awesome supernatural powers are juxtaposed with heroin, but not for any greater moral purpose. It's merely the synergistic intersection of (a) an absolutely necessary devil's bargain (what makes you strong kills you); and (b) the co-opting of drug jargon to make a threadbare conceit (power-mad high schoolers) sexy. Renny Harland, one of the few remaining practitioners of the cloyingly phallic hard rock montage sets, directs. No wonder it's a decade and a half behind the cinematic times. (LB) Rated PG-13

& r & Crank & r &

It's a rough day in Britain-land when you wake up and realize you're going to die -- that there's some sort of poison or other general nastiness coursing through your system (put there by bad, bad men) that will kill you. Soon. So you go around trying to kill the guys who are killing you. You might be looking for a cure but, then, you might just want to take a few of the bastards with you. Jason Statham plays the dying guy. We like him ... despite ourselves. Rated R

& r & GREECE: SECRETS OF THE PAST & r &

Continuing their long tradition of making learning fun, the folks at IMAX bring us Greece, wherein you get to see how the island of Santorini was formed and how the island's volcanic eruption, one of the biggest explosions in history, occurred. Unrated

& r & HOLLYWOODLAND & r &

This is the true, mystery-shrouded story about the death of George Reeves, the actor who played Superman on the 1950s TV series. Was it suicide or murder? That's the question, and it's investigated by a sleazy but smooth private detective (Adrien Brody), who can't seem to connect any of the myriad puzzle pieces. With Diane Lane as a jealous lover, Bob Hoskins as a powerful studio executive and, in possibly his best role to date, Ben Affleck as Reeves. (ES) Rated R

& r & How to Eat Fried Worms & r &

The disgusting stuff is what all the fourth-grade boys are going to be shouting about while skateboarding away from the multiplex. What they won't realize is how the worms are just a cover for some advice about bullying, friendships and self-reliance. (MB) Rated PG

& r & THE ILLUSIONIST & r &

A complex story simply told, it's the tale of a magician pulling rank and class to get the girl. Cleanly crafted, subtly acted and dulcetly shot, it's a film so conspicuously evocative of time and place you forget, for long stretches, it was made in a cinematic world run by overwrought CGI. (LB) Rated PG-13

& r & Invincible & r &

The latest in an endless series of true "inspirational" sports stories that Hollywood likes to pump out with regularity. The Philadelphia Eagles suck so bad they decide to hold open tryouts. Enter 30-year-old Vince, a schoolteacher and bartender who knows how to catch and run and save the day at every local sandlot football game with the guys. It won't surprise anyone that he tries out and survives cut after cut and ... well, there's no point in giving away an ending that everyone will know is coming well before they sit down. Sometimes formula works, but not very often. And Invincible is certainly no Friday Night Lights. (ES) Rated PG

& r & Little Miss Sunshine & r &

A roadtrip in which six not-so-different family members are forced into a VW bus and made to fight out their differences en route to a state beauty pageant, Little Miss Sunshine is about the contemporary American archetypes that make much of our country such a deeply unhappy place. It's a good film, but an incomplete one. (LB) Rated R

& r & PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: DEAD MAN'S CHEST & r &

Cast, director and writers are back for the midsection of the raucous trilogy about Captain Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp), William Turner (Orlando Bloom) and Elizabeth Swann (Keira Knightley). This time, everyone is after Sparrow, including the ghostly Davy Jones (Bill Nighy) who wants to swallow his soul. Depp overdoes it to perfection, and all is set up beautifully for next year's conclusion, which will feature Keith Richards as Depp's dad. (ES) Rated PG-13

& r & THE PROTECTOR & r &

Kham grew up with elephants. When bad people kidnap his elephants and kill his dignified grandfather, Kham wants revenge -- on the bad guys, and apparently on every building in Australia. He plans to get it by using every gol-darn helicopter and speedboat and flying, double-arching, stop-action martial arts gut-punch that he can mete out to these suckers. Biff, crunch, ka-pow ... Muy Thai fighting techniques look like they really hurt. Rated R

& r & STEP UP & r &

We at The Inlander get a little cranky when we have to go more than, like, four months without a film about a plucky boy/girl from one side of the tracks befriending, on the dance floor, a more refined boy/girl from the other side of those tracks. Thank God for Step Up, then; we nearly got suicidal. Bad-side-of-the-tracks guy looks like a krumper (so hot right now) and the good-side-of-the-tracks girl is a ballerina. They're going to learn valuable lessons about judging book covers. Rated PG-13

& r & TALLADEGA NIGHTS: THE BALLAD OF RICKY BOBBY & r &

Will Ferrell finally gets a script that's worthy of his comic talents. He plays the title character, a loose cannon on the NASCAR circuit who becomes a star, falls upon hard times, then must attempt a comeback. But he's up against a former partner (John C. Reilly), a smarmy French challenger (Sacha Baron Cohen), and a newly developed fear of speed. Lots of exciting racetrack scenarios and raucous humor. (ES) Rated PG-13

& r & The Wicker Man & r &

Okay, so here's what. Nic Cage's daughter died or something and now, on a mission to save some other girl from vaguely frightening abduction-type scenarios, the line drawn in his reality between the daughter he couldn't save and the girl he might just be able to save blurs. It's a remake, but Neil LaBute is like Kid Rock, an American bad ass. Rated PG-13

& r & WIRED TO WIN & r &

A kind of meditation on the mental components of physical success, the film uses an upcoming touchstone, the Tour de France, as a way to get people thinking about the way our brains work in conjunction with our bodies. (LB) Unrated

& r & WORLD TRADE CENTER & r &

Oliver Stone takes an unexpectedly delicate approach in his human-interest focus on what happened in Manhattan on 9/11. This is the story of two Port Authority cops who were trapped beneath the rubble of Tower One and their implausible thoughts of survival and of their loved ones at home. And it's about those loved ones wondering if the men in their lives were still alive. Terrific performances by Nicolas Cage and Michael Pena, and a great script that avoids the big picture but stays with a microcosm of that awful day's events. (ES) Rated PG-13